Council of Faculty Chairs Senate Committee Chairs Meeting
MINUTES
DECEMBER 13, 2007
9:00AM–
11:00AM
MEETING CALLED
BY
Elizabeth Bjork, Academic Senate Chair at 9:02am.
TYPE OF MEETING
Council of Faculty Chairs and Senate Committee Chairs
PRESENT
ABSENT
SENATE STAFF
133 KERCKHOFF HALL
Elizabeth Bjork (Senate Chair), Michael Goldstein (Senate Vice Chair/ Chair-Elect) Vivek
Shetty (Immediate Past Chair), Ines Boechat (SCC), Phillip Bonacich (SCC), Stuart
Brown (SCC), Sachiko Cochran (SCC), Ian Coulter (SCC), Robert Frank , Jr. (SCC),
Sylvia Hurtado (SCC), Diana Messadi (SCC), James Miller (SCC), Daniel Mitchell (SCC),
Barry O’Neill (SCC), Claudia Rapp (SCC), Jan Reiff (SCC), Muriel McClendon (CFC),
Gary Gray (CFC), Robert Fovell (CFC), Mary Ann Lewis (CFC), Ray Knapp (CFC) , Robert
Rhoads (CFC), Nick Brecha (CFC), Stan Schein, (CFC), Richard Muntz (CFC), Gyula
Gazdag (CFC), Ralph Frerichs (CFC), John Yagiela (CFC)
Jan DeLeeuw (SCC), Robin Fisher (SCC), Andrea Ghez (SCC), Carlos Mechoso (SCC),
Maximillian Novak (SCC),
Jaime Balboa, Ryan Watson
GUESTS
Agenda topics
ANNOUNCEMENTS
ELIZABETH BJORK
Budget Cuts: Chair Bjork updated the Council on the anticipated budget cuts, indicating
that there are few details about how they will affect individual schools and departments.
DISCUSSION
CONCLUSIONS
Legal Affairs Candidates: Vice Chair Goldstein announced that the Senate leadership will
be interviewing candidates for the Vice Chancellor of Legal Affairs. Any suggested topics
of discussion should be emailed directly to the leadership for
n/a
REPORTS FROM FACULTY EXECUTIVE CHAIRS
FACULTY EXECUTIVE CHAIRS
DISCUSSION
Phillip Bonacich (SCC, Charges): Chair Bonacich updated the Council on the actions of the Charges
committee and the charge of the Committee.
Barry O’Neill (SCC, Privilege & Tenure): Chair O’Neill informed the Council of the duties of his committee,
and its interaction with other Judicial committees. Currently, the committee is not reviewing any cases.
Robert Rhoads (Graduate School of Education): FEC Chair Rhoads updated the Council on several
ongoing faculty search committees. The FEC is satisfied with the composition of the search committees.
Raymond Knapp (L&S, Humanities): FEC Vice Chair Knapp updated the Council on the creation of the
School of Music, officially titled the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. Despite the restructuring, there are
no administrative changes that have resulted. The Department of Musicology will remain in Humanities, and
Ethnomusicology and Music will remain in the School of Arts & Architecture. The other major issue FEC
Vice Chair Knapp discussed was the decision of the Regents to not to fund some of the mandated increases
for staff. The Department is being asked to absorb these costs, possibly through decreased course offerings
and cuts to the Summer program.
This update brought discussion from members of the Council that FECs should approach the Chancellor with
such concrete instances of how these cuts will directly affect the level of instruction. This will help the
administration recognize the impact that such cuts will have upon schools, departments, and programs.
Robert Fovell (L&S, Physical Sciences): FEC Chair Fovell briefed the Council on the progress of the
WASC accreditation process, which voted to endorse the Undergraduate Capstone initiative and is also
considering a quantitative reasoning requirement. It was the sense of the Committee that the current
requirement is not satisfactory, and a college level course should be offered to satisfy the requirement.
Duncan Lindsey (Public Affairs/Urban Planning): FEC Chair Lindsey updated the Council on the School’s
search for a new dean. A search committee has been announced however there was some degree of
concern about balance on the committee, an opinion which was expressed to the EVC, resulting in a few
new members added to the search committee.
Gyula Gazdag (School of Theatre, Film, and TV): FEC Chair Gazdag informed the Council that course
action in the School was approved. The School has also made a proposal for a minor in Film, TV, and
Digital Media, which has been approved. The School is happy about the progress that has been made, as it
opens up the field to undergrads as a minor.
Nick Brecha (School of Medicine): FEC Chair Brecha presented two major issues to the Council:
1) The UC-wide proposal on Industry-Faculty Relations. It was the sense of the SOM FEC, as well as the
Executive Board, that the proposal was flawed, that the policy could not be adequately enforced. The School
has followed its own guidelines for Industry-Faculty relations.
2) The FEC also discussed the incident involving animal rights’ protestors at the residence of Professor
London. The FEC condemned the actions that were taken against her, as it threatens faculty right to
academic freedom and caused extensive damage to her personal property.
This issue prompted discussion by the Council regarding the systemwide proposal regarding non-affiliates.
This proposal is enacting a certain level of misdemeanors for UC Police to deal with such incidents (i.e.
wearing masks for the purpose of intimidation). Members of the Council raised the possibility of the UC filing
civil law suits to prevent and deter such activists from engaging in such behavior, as well as consulting with
VC Peccei or Barbara Levey. The Senate can play an important role by keeping the issue at the forefront,
and by also revealing the impact such incidents have upon faculty recruitment (if University doesn’t take a
strong role in protecting the faculty, others will be more reluctant to conduct research).
Stan Schein (Life Sciences): FEC representative Schein raised the issue of faculty protection from animal
rights activists in the search for the new Dean of Legal Affairs. FEC representative Schein expressed that
the candidates should be pro-active in dealing with this issue should be discussed, and that it would be
valuable for the leadership to raise this issue in the interview process. Members of the Council expressed
their sense that Dean should be more proactively involved in this issue (i.e. protecting faculty members’
homes, rights as researchers).
Dagmar Richter (School of Arts and Architecture): FEC Vice Chair Richter concentrated on the problem
of diversity in the School of Arts. Overall, the student body and faculty is lacking diversity, consisting of 2/3
female and 1/3 male, with the faculty that is mostly male. The head of admissions was invited to the FEC,
where he gave a report about how the School is making changes to the admissions process, giving more
weight to a student’s statement of purpose. Overall, the goal of the process is the recruitment of a more
diverse student/faculty body, a difficult prospect for the School as it is more focused on content than the
admissions process.
Jan Reiff (SCC, Graduate Council): Graduate Council Chair Reiff discussed two items:
1) The creation of an ad hoc GC committee to deal with issue of family leave for graduate students. The
committee is particularly focused on the issue of new union contracts, which gives family leave time to
Graduate students, as Berkeley and Irvine, as well as many competitor Universities, have well articulated
policies on this issue. The committee will send out a questionnaire to ask departments how they have dealt
with this issue. It is the hope that the committee will have a set of recommendations by early May. The
Council is also looking for more faculty members to serve on this committee.
2) The GC has been a great deal of time on NRTs and the increased graduate funding that was supposed to
come to campus. Although the committee was told that there was new money for grad students, there is
actually less money due to the distribution methods. The committee is taking efforts to follow up with a
graduate support conference, to find alternative source of funding, and work with the development office to
more fully. The GC is hoping to coordinate a forum that ascertains what worked best in the past, and solicits
creative ideas based upon positive results from past experience.
Jim Miller (SCC, ConC): ConC Chair Miller discussed three items with the Council:
1) All committees slots have been filled by ConC (with one exception: a single member of student fee
advisory committee); 2) The committee is in the planning process to organize a presentation to each
department on the services the Senate offers to faculty; 3) The selection process of search and review
committees is changing. The committee was disturbed by the fact that of suggested faculty slates that were
presented to the EVC, it was likely that only one (if any) was chosen from a slate of 10. ConC has been
operating on a memorandum of understanding that was previously put together under EVC Daniel Newman.
Essentially rather than the EVC office putting together a slate, whereas it says that the ConC should put
together the slate with recommendations from the EVC, who would have final say. When the EVC receives a
final slate, there will be an interaction between his office and the Chair of ConC, to discuss the committee.
4) Chair Miller also discussed the Senate Observer Program, which allows interested faculty members to sit
on certain committee meetings to observe their function. There hasn’t been any notable progress on the
Program, as the volunteer list in the process of being submitted for 2008-09 committees (once it is received
ConC will look into the observer program).
Claudia Rapp (Library): Chair Rapp informed the Council of the renovation of Young Research Library
(YRL). They are in the process of reconstructing the ground floor. However, upon reviewing the ground
plans, the faculty committee had serious questions. Most notably, the committee was concerned that the
renovation would result in a reduction of actual print reference section possibly by nearly 50%. The
Committee believes that the University would consider having a faculty member on development committee
and would like to encourage everyone that uses YRL to communicate their views to COLASC.
The update on YRL brought up the issue of academic journals in a digital medium. Members of the Council
brought up the issue of whether such a system would remain permanent; there was concern that the digital
system would not guarantee that journals that are now being stored digitally will always be available in the
future. The Committee asked for clarification on this issue.
The discussion of digital media also brought up the Committee’s sense that digital journals would create a
conflict of interest for YRL, as the library serves as an organization whose goal is involving students into the
library. There is also some discussion of a café being built into YRL, in addition to added study space for
students, which will provide them with a venue where they can work in groups. The Library is also looking at
ways to more clearly brand its product, reminding users that they have access to such materials as a result
of UCLA’s resources.
Stuart Brown (UgC): Chair Brown updated the Council on the issues discussed in the Ug C, focusing around
discussions regarding program reviews and admissions. One item that was discussed was the f inal cap on
process of General Education Reform, a process started nearly 10 years ago by Vice Provost Judi Smith.
There is also the creation of a new UgC subcommittee, GE Governance, which will be formed by a
nominating process coming from UgC Chair and approved by ConC. Regarding curricular approvals, the
UgC approved two new minors, one in Society and genetics, the other in Theatre, Film, and Television.
There is also a BOARS proposal having to do with the change of master plan and how it applies to ad
Shared experience program. Additionally Chair Brown discussed the UC-Merced shared Experience
program, where students who applied to both UCLA and UC Merced (and were not admitted to UCLA) are
offered a contract where they attend Merced for two years, and are then guaranteed admission to UCLA after
two years.
Eugene Volokh (Academic Freedom): Chair Volokh discussed an instance where a petition signed by
several dozen students demanded the removal of a faculty member because the students disapproved of the
faculty member’s research outside the classroom.
Daniel Mitchell (CAP): CAP has been attempting to expedite its reviews, which is related to there being
fewer RCs being appointed in personnel cases. Most recently, in concert with Academic VC, CAP has been
able to delegate more reviews in merit acceleration and deceleration. Chair Mitchell also related to the
Council that CAP doesn’t review salaries, only steps and grades. As the Step system and salary system
have become progressively unrelated, a certain degree of tension has emerged from this divergence
(especially at Step 6), which inhibits Departments from giving faculty from an off-scale adjustment. Chair
Mitchell noted that Berkeley is making strides to create as much autonomy as they can, within the constraints
of the UC system.
Chair Mitchell also discussed the how UCLA has a large group of senior faculty members nearing the end of
their career. The response from legal counsel has told Deans and Chairs that the word retirement should no
longer be used in any forum, inhibiting people from making transitions that could be beneficial to both sides.
Members of the Council raised the issue of whether UCLA could move more toward Berkeley’s model for
CAP, which includes salary review. One major issue that prevents UCLA from working under such a system
is that Berkeley doesn’t have a Medical School. And as many case come out of the M edical School,
Berkeley’s CAP equivalent has a significantly lower workload. Berkeley has also decided to change the
system as much as they can, within the confines of systemwide policies.
Shane White (FWC): Chair White continued the discussion regarding salaries, expressing his view to the
Council that Berkeley has taken the most proactive in respect to retaining competitive salaries (UCLA being
the 2nd). This is in the context of the scale increase in the cost of living adjustment. Fixing the scales is also
important, as it speaks to an equity issue, as fixing the scale brings the university back to peer review
instead of Deans’ decisions. Chair White also maintained that it is important to note that the Health Sciences
faculty mostly saw no increase in their take home salaries.
The second issue Chair White discussed with the Council was that of Medical Benefits. Due to the actions of
the Committee, the choices have been retained, and despite actual raises in cost to UCOP, the average cost
for employees has actually dropped by a small amount. On a local level, it is important that the Faculty
Senate continues to develop a strong relationship with Medical Center leaders, to retain faculty access to
Medical Center services.
The third issue discussed by Chair White was childcare. He spoke mainly about three issues, that of
allocation, affordability, and access. As it involves so many needs and constituencies, it is a deeply complex
issue, and one that speaks to recruitment and retention issues. One issue that might be of benefit is better
staff and administrative support in looking at various problem areas, and brining the issue to Senior
administrative meetings.
The last issue Chair White updated the Council on was that of the Faculty Welfa re alert. The committee is
proud of the alert and open to using it in ways to communicate with Faculty in ways that any FEC/SCC chairs
can think of.
Sachiko “Tommy” Cochran (Emeriti): Chair Cochran discussed the committee’s responsibility of handling
in memorium for emeriti that have passed away. Although the committee is not entirely caught up, it is on
track to be caught up, with new staff to help with that issue. The committee is also planning the next pre-
retirement seminar; the Medical Center is not interested in having a retirement seminar, as there as
physicians that are not senate members, and they don’t want to created problems between the senate and
non-senate members. To deal with this situation, HR will conduct a short seminar with MC facult y on
retirement issues.
Sylvia Hurtado (CUARS): Chair Hurtado discussed a number of items for the Council. One significant
change was the implementation of the holistic review process. Preliminary evaluations of the process have
exhibits results that the university had hoped to achieve with these changes. There still remains a high
degree of excellence in terms of records (GPA, SAT numbers are still the same), while also able to more
This gives UCLA the capacity to chose the top level of students from the applicant pool. Chair Hurtado did
raise one concern regarding the UC Merced Shared Experience Program. The concern mainly focused on
the bypassing of Academic Senate Review, as well as the admission of non-resident students, bypassing a
review at the system wide level, as the UC is interested in increasing the number of non-resident applicants.
hoping to be able to examine what the implications of more non-resident students,
There are a number of questions of whether this increase in non-resident students will require changes in
admissions and have implications to the student body. Amongst the committee, there is concern that this
change would result in a loss of slots for resident Undergraduates. Members of the Council supported this
concern from the Committee, and expressed their belief that CUARS should act expeditiously to prevent the
administration from moving forward without the consent of the Senate.
Diana Messadi (COR): Chair Messadi updated the Council on the issue the Committee is de aling with
regarding Faculty Grants. Currently, there is a $1000 Enabling Grant, which is given to anyone who applies.
However, members of COR feel that the enabling grants should no longer be approved without review. On
the Committee, most of the votes were in favor of eliminating the enabling grant; however past chairs of COR
had felt that the elimination of these grants was not the best course of action (as faculty might not apply for
the grants if they are being reviewed). Chair Messadi decided to keep the grants as they are this year, but
there will be further discussion in the future. The Chair sought input from other FECs regarding this issue.
Ian Coulter (International Education): Chair Coulter overviewed for the Council the main issues the
Committee is reviewing. One major issue the Committee is grappling with is d efining what exactly
International Education encompasses and what it oversees. Although the committee has historically
overseen the Education Abroad Program (EAP) can oversee EAP, it has become clear that many of the
traditional oversight areas have had no legislative oversight whatsoever.
The second issue raised by Chair Coulter is the process of an external review of EAP programs, which is
being conducted by Rory Hume’s office. One of the major problems it is addressing is a minority report
about how the report was actually done. There was also concern regarding the indecent haste of the
deadline to respond, as the Committee is apprehensive to quickly proposing drastic changes to the program;
the Committee foresees a contentious response from each campus, as some campuses have already
protested the haste of the response. Chair Coulter also raised the issue that the Committee is concerned
about number of applicants who applied to the program. The committee will most likely put on some
workshops to increase student involvement.
CONCLUSIONS
ACTION ITEMS
n/a
n/a
PERSON RESPONSIBLE
DEADLINE
Meeting adjourned at 10:59am.
Council of Faculty Chairs and Senate Committee Chairs Attendance Record 2007-2008
Name
Bjork, Elizabeth (Senate Chair)
Goldstein, Michael (Senate Vice Chair)
Shetty, Vivek (Senate Immediate Past Chair)
Boechat, Ines (SCC – Diversity)
Bonacich, Phillip (SCC - Charges)
Brecha, Nick (CFC - Medicine)
Brown, Stuart (SCC- UgC)
Carlson, Ann (CFC - Law)
Cochran, Sachiko (SCC - Emeriti)
Coulter, Ian (SCC – Education Abroad)
De Leeuw, Jan (SCC – Comm & Continuing Ed)
Fisher, Robin (SCC – R&J)
Fovell, Robert (CFC – L&S Physical Sciences)
Frank, Robert Jr. (SCC - CPB)
Frerichs, Ralph (CFC – Public Health)
Gazdag, Gyula (CFC - TFT)
Ghez, Andrea (SCC – Faculty Research Lec)
Giger, Joyce Newman (CFC - Nursing)
Hurtado, Sylvia (SCC - CUARS)
Knapp, Raymond (CFC – L&S Humanities)
Lindsey, Duncan (CFC – Public Affairs/Urban
Plan)
Longstaff, Francis (CFC – Anderson SOM)
Massadi, Diana (SCC - COR)
Mc Clendon, Muriel (CFC – L&S Social
Sciences)
Mechoso, Carlos (SCC - GAC)
Miller, James (SCC - ConC)
Mitchell, Daniel (SCC - CAP)
Moldwin, Mark (SCC–Honors,Awards,Prizes
UgC)
Muntz, Richard (CFC - Engineering)
O’Neill, Barry (SCC – P&T)
Rapp, Claudia (SCC - Library)
Reiff, Jan (SCC - GC)
Rhoads, Robert (CFC – Education)
Richter, Dagmar (CFC – Arts and Architecture)
Schein, Stan (CFC – L&S Life Sciences)
Volokh, Eugene (SCC – Academic Freedom)
White, Shane (SCC – Faculty Welfare)
Yancey, Antronette (SCC-Intercollegiate
Athletics)
(CFC) = Council of Faculty Chairs
10/25/07
12/13/07
X
X
X
EX
EX
X
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A
EX
EX
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EX
X
X
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X
X
X
X
A
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X
A
A
X
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X
A
A
X
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X
EX
X
X
X
X
X
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EX
A
X
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X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
02/14/08
04/17/08
06/12/08
(SCC) = Senate Committee Chairs
X = Present
EX = Excused
A = Absent without notice
*Due to a staffing error, Senate Committee Chairs were not in attendance at 10/25
meeting